Hermione Investigates
by CharlesTheBold
Summary: Harry Potter says that he's seen Voldemort, but few people seem to believe him. Can Hermione find the evidence needed to convince people? Please review.
1. Chapter 1

**Hermione Investigates**

_(Disclaimer: I have no business connection with HARRY POTTER. My only purpose in writing this story is to have fun and maybe share it)_

_(Author's note: This story is set in the summer between Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix._

**CHAPTER I**

I tapped on the wall behind the Leaky Cauldron and watched it unravel. This is the first time I've come to Diagon Alley alone, without either my parents or the Weasleys. I pointed out to my parents that since I've been shopping in Hogsmeade for two years, I could certainly take care of myself in Diagon Alley. I didn't mention Voldemort's return.

I didn't involve the Weasleys because this was a personal expedition. It was tiring, having to go to the library at Hogwarts everytime a question wasn't solved by my schoolbooks. I wanted to buy some tomes of my own. And I had money, because Harry had given me some of his winnings from the Triwizard Tournament.

As I came out of Gringotts with a number of Galleons in the pockets of my robe, I spotted the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, walking down the street with a toad-like woman dressed in pink. Up to a few weeks ago I had considered him just a fussy, mildly dotty old man. Then I heard how he had ordered dementors to kiss Barty Crouch the Younger and consume his soul.

I had never thought much about souls until then; my upbringing had not been very religious. But if potentially immortal souls existed, then the idea of destroying one was horrifying. Even Dante, writing about the Inferno, hadn't talked about destroying souls; just tormenting them. What's worse, Fudge had just ordered it. Nothing about a trial. Professor Dumbledore was irate because Crouch might have given us useful information, albeit against his will. I was shocked because Cornelius Fudge had used a power that no modern government official had or should have. It had been centuries since the King or Queen of England could simply order "Off with his head!"

I didn't want to speak to Fudge; I didn't think I could be civil. So I hurriedly turned around, and promptly bumped into a young woman who was behind me.

"I'm terribly sorry," I said. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

"It's alright," said the other. "I'm always banging into things."

"Tonks?"

"Hermione!"

We exchanged a hug. Tonks and I had met a year ago, and had had a thrilling adventure, which we had both sworn never to discuss. But since I was at Hogwarts during most of the year, and Tonks worked as an Auror in London, we hadn't seen much of each other. Furthermore I had an excuse for not recognizing Tonks immediately, because she had dyed her hair green.

"Wot d'ya say we have a butterbeer together, at the Leaky Cauldron?"

"Well, OK." My personal preference would have been to share some ice cream at Fortescue's, bur I realized that saying that would sound childish.

We went back through the wall into the pub which, as always, looked rather drab after the sight of all the magic shops. Tom, the barman, seemed to know Tonks pretty well, to the point of removing everything breakable from her vicinity.

"So," said Tonks. "Hogwarts seems to be a much more exciting place than when I went there. The Twi-wizard Tournament! Though what I've heard of it seems to be rather confusing."

"It was confusing to be there, too," I admitted. "What did you want to know?"

"Well, first of all, how your friend Harry got dragged into it. I thought it was supposed to be between champions of the three schools. Diggory from Hogwarts, Delacour from Beauxbatons, Krum from Durmstrang. Why was Harry Potter involved?"

"Because Voldemort had his minions put a spell on the Goblet of Fire, to make it nominate a fourth champion. And instead of investigating why it behaved so oddly, everybody just did what they were told," Hermione said bitterly.

"Voldemort?" echoed Tonks. At least she didn't seem to be one of the witches who panicked when the name was uttered. "But Voldemort's dead. He got zapped by his own spell, trying to kill your friend more than a dozen years ago."

I felt sudden dread at that. I knew that Fudge had expressed disbelief at Harry's story, but I had taken it for granted that he would be cautious, and ask the Aurors to look into the possibility. If he had, Tonks, who was a junior Auror, would have heard something about it. Since she had not, it sounded like Fudge was convinced that the story was false, and was doing nothing to prepare the Wizard World of England against the danger. Everybody was vulnerable, except for those who were heeding Dumbledore's warning.

"No!" I said desperately. "Voldemort IS alive. He survived the zapping in a weakened form, and he got back to normal just last month."

"How do you know?" asked Tonks in surprise, knocking over her mug of butterbeer.

I dodged the spilling liquid. "Harry saw it, and he told me."

"And you believe him?"

"And Dumbledore believes him! Harry does not tell lies!" I said angrily.

"Sorry. It's just that – I've heard nothing of this."

"I know. Fudge didn't believe him, so apparently he's not publishing it about."

Tonks pondered. "It's possible that Fudge has put a small, elite team on the matter. That he doesn't want to discuss it more widely because he fears that it will create a panic."

"I suppose," I muttered, unconvinced.

"I'll tell you wot," said Tonks. "I may be low in the pecking order, but I know Aurors who are much higher up, and who would probably be willing to level with me. I'll see if something is getting done."

"Thank you," I said, but she was still worried. If the Ministry of Magic was doing nothing, then opposition would depend on a school headmaster who was in Scotland most of the time, and a junior Auror with a tendency to knock things over. Just that, ranged against the most powerful wizard in the world.

TO BE CONTINUED.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hermione Investigates**

**Chapter 2**

After several days during which I did not hear back from Tonks, I was terribly anxious for news about Voldemort. The catch was that, living in a quiet Muggle suburb, I heard almost no important wizard news. The DAILY PROPHET, which was delivered by owl every morning, said nothing about the Dark Lord.

I was tempted to visit the Weasleys for a while and get news that way. But as I was getting older, I was starting to realize the practical side of things. The Weasleys were a poor family and had four children to pay Hogwarts tuition for, having already put Percy, Charlie, and Bill through. Though they never complained about it, my visits, and Harry's, meant another mouth to feed.

But why should visiting always go that direction?.

"Mum?" I asked at dinner. "Do you mind if I have a friend from Hogwarts over for a couple of days?"

"That would be nice, Minnie. Who are you thinking of inviting?"

"Harry, or Ron."

"Hmm," said Dad. "Maybe it would not be good to have a boy over, Minnie. People would gossip, and we don't want them speculating too much on where you go to school during most of the year."

"Oh." It hadn't occurred to me that people would interpret the visitor as a boy friend, because I never thought of Harry or Ron that way. What about a girl? "Ginny Weasley, then." Ginny wasn't as close a friend as Ron was, but she would certainly be in as much in touch with Wizard news as her brothers.

My parents were agreeable, so the next day, when the owl delivered my Daily Prophet, I gave it an extra snack, attached a note to its leg, and asked it to take it to Ginny. I never have figured out how owls know who everybody is and where they live, but I got a message back from Ginny the next day. "That would be cool, coming for a visit. Living at home with a lot of brothers, I don't get much chance for girl talk in the summer. There's one teenaged witch who lives nearby, but everybody calls her Loony, for good reason. I'd love to come."

Girl talk wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but it would do far a start.

We worked out logistics in subsequent notes. Ginny knew how to get to and around King's Cross Station, so she would look for the rail line that would take her to my town, and make sure that she had enough "Muggle money" (pounds sterling) to pay her way, including a return ticket. Mum and I would pick her up at the local railway station.

"I think I see your friend," Mum said after the train stopped at the platform.

"How do you know?" I was trying to remember whether Mum had ever meant Ginny.

Mum giggled. "Because she's wearing a T-shirt with a full-length skirt. You told me that wizards had a rather different fashion sense. Besides, she has that very red hair."

Mum was right about it being Ginny. When we walked up to her, she was very polite to Mum; Mrs. Weasley had taught her well, in spite of the fact that she had 6 rather wild older brothers. We led her to the car. Ginny was familiar with Muggle cars, but was disappointed that ours couldn't fly or expand to accommodate more passengers.

I had warned her in advance not to talk in front of my parents about Voldemort; I had not decided yet how to break the news that a powerful and dangerous wizard had come back to life. Unfortunately Ginny hit on another awkward subject.

"Have you heard from Krum lately?" she asked.

"We've exchanged letters," I said reluctantly.

"Who is Crumb?" asked my mother, who heard us from her driving seat.

"He's nobody," I said hastily.

"Nobody!" echoed Ginny indignantly. I had forgotten that she was a big Quidditch fan, and hoped to join the Griffindor team this year or next. "Why, he's the most famous Quidditch player in the world. And he took HERMIONE to the Christmas dance! All the other girls were so jealous."

Even looking at the back of Mum's head, I could tell that my Mum was startled by that information. Being separated from me for much of the year, Mum and Dad still tended to think of me as their little girl, their Minnie. I got the impression that once Ginny had gone back home, my mother would want to have a long awkward conversation about being careful with boys, particularly sport stars. "So how is Neville?" I asked, to change the subject.

"Oh, he and I aren't going out together anymore. Nice boy, but often shy." She started comparing the merits of several boys at Hogwarts and seemed to forget about Krum.

Mum had to go back to work at the dentistry office, so she dropped off Ginny and me at our house. As I looked at the shrubbery by our front door, I had an odd sense of déjà vu. Four years ago, the same day that I had heard of Hogwarts for the first time, I had found a piece of paper in the bushes, which simply said "FIND HARRY POTTER". I later sought out Harry on the Hogwarts Express, under pretext of looking for Neville Longbottom's missing toad, and that day had changed my life. I never found out where that note came from.

Ginny meanwhile was fascinated by the "Muggle Machinery" in my house – washing machines, Hoovers for picking up dirt, and so on. She even interpreted light switches, which I took for granted, as "machines for turning on lights, like Dumbledore's Deluminator".

"I brought my wand with me," Ginny said with some embarrassment . "Mum said I couldn't use it because of Under-age Sorcery rules, and besides that it might muck up your electronics, but I'd feel naked without it."

"It's all right. I keep mine hidden in my dresser in my room."

I took her to my room, and was startled when she said "EEK! I didn't know that you collected bugs, Hermione." She pointed to a jar with a beetle inside.

"Oh," I said. "That's not a real bug. That's Rita Skeeter, stuck in her own spell. She turned herself into an insect to eavesdrop on us talking to Dumbledore."

"My brothers told me. But they said you planned to let her go when you got back to London."

"Changed my mind, and decided to let her stew a while longer, after thinking of all the rotten things she wrote about me. Do you think that's terribly vindictive of me?"

"Not at all."

So we exchanged confidences, now and after dinner. She wanted to know what it was like, growing up as a Muggle girl. And she mentioned a few things that I had not heard at Hogwarts.

"I love horses. When I was a younger, Mum and Dad sent me to some cousins who had girls my age. They owed horses and taught me how to ride. Later, when I was trained to ride brooms, I thought it was like horse riding, just in 3 dimensions. Do you ride?"

"No. But there is a riding stable on the edge of town, if you want to rent a horse for a day."

Later:

"There's something odd about my ancestry. On Dad's side I was the first girl in 7 generations, and I was born only after Mum had 6 boys. But nobody knows if that's significant, or just a coincidence. Trelawney says I'll get a famous husband. But that's so old-fashioned, and I'm not looking forward to it at the moment."

It wasn't until late that night, when we were in bed, that I brought up the most important subject. "You heard Harry's story, didn't you? When Dumbledore announced it to the school?"

I couldn't see Ginny in the darkness. But I felt her tense up. "Yes. That HE's back. And that he might play with my head again."

Ulp, I forgot that Ginny had had her own history with Voldemort, being possessed by that ghost or whatever. "I don't think he'll target you again. Last time he was very limited in his power, and you happened to be the only one in reach. This time –"

"This time he could cast his curse on everybody, if he's not stopped!"

"People are working to stop him. Like Dumbledore. And-" I hesitated, hoping Ginny could suggest others.

"Dad's away a lot. I think he's doing extra work at the Ministry, helping devise strategy against – HIM."

My heart sank. I knew, that Mr. Weasley's usual duties at the Ministry had to do with regulating magical artifacts to keep them from being discovered by Muggles. He would be far less likely to be called to work against Voldemort than Tonks would.

If only Tonks would get back to me-

_(AUTHOR'S NOTE: The story about finding the note instructing Hermione to seek out Harry is from my previous story HERMIONE GRANGER AND THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE)_

_(AUTHOR'S NOTE: My notion that Ginny is fond of horses is based on the fact that her Patronus takes that form.) _


	3. Chapter 3

**Hermione Investigates**

**Chapter 3**

"I thought Muggles didn't have pictures that moved," said Ginny, looking at the box in the corner.

"That's the telly," I said.

"If it bothers you, we can switch it off," said Mum, picking up the remote and pushing the OFF button.

Ginny went into a panic "Where did the picture go?"

That surprised me. Even after four years' exposure to wizard culture, there are some things I don't understand, and one of them is the precise attitude toward pictures. They don't regard talking, moving pictures, like the Fat Lady who guards the entrance to Gryffindor, as fully human, but apparently they got shocked if a picture seems to be casually destroyed. Mum was even more confused than I was, but could tell she had done something that upset Ginny. "I'm sorry, I'll turn the telly back on. She used the remote, and indeed the telly came back on, but on a different channel, replacing the news report with a talk show. Ginny looked more dismayed than ever; she must have thought Mum had destroyed one picture and produced another one out of the blue.

"Excuse me – gotta visit the loo –" she hurried out of the breakfast room.

"I'm sorry, I think your friend is experiencing culture shock. Too much Muggleness," said Dad.

"I know, I didn't expect that," I said guiltily. Harry and I didn't experience similar culture shock when we first got to Hogwarts, but I realized that they were reasons for that. I had studied the school a lot before arriving there, so it didn't hit me as being strange. Harry had been miserable in his own life and delighted to be somewhere different.

"Perhaps you should think of something familiar that she could do today."

"Hmm – she mentioned last night that she likes riding horses. If you could drop us off at Roans & Rides, maybe—"

"Good, I'll do that," said Mum. She looked at the door through which Ginny had exited. "Minnie, while your friend's out of the room, there's something we should talk about. We had a patient in yesterday, and when we wanted to take X-rays of her teeth, she warned us we'd have to take precautions, because she was carrying a baby. At fifteen!"

I saw where this was going. Since they are out of contact with me for much of the year, they were startled by the information that I might be interested in a boy like Krum, and overestimated just how interested I was. "Mum, I don't plan to get pregnant any time soon!"

"That's the point. She didn't plan it, she—"

"Got herself laid, and everything followed," I finished. I didn't usually use coarse language, but I was anxious to hurry this conversation. "It's not going to happen to me. Number one, I don't intend to get in bed with a boy any time soon. Number two, the girl prefects have told us younger girls how to avoid pregnancy if we do."

"How? We want to make sure it's something reliable, not some old wives' tale."

"It's both. There's a spell for temporarily making a woman barren. It started off as a curse, but a girl can use it to ensure that she doesn't get pregnant."

"Minnie, that doesn't sound good. Using a spell that is intended to cause harm, for the sake of its side-effects."

"Then you should believe me when I say I'm not going to need it any time soon. Now, I think I hear Ginny coming back. Please don't talk about this in front of her."

Ginny indeed came in, and the talk turned to a discussion of horses.

0-0-0

I stood at the fence of the Roans and Rides stables, watching girls ride about on horses, including Ginny. I had never ridden a horse in my life, though I had ridden brooms, and on one occasion, a hippogriff. Ginny had urged me to take beginners' lessons, but I just thought horse riding was a waste of time. You hop up on a horse, you hop off an hour later, and what have you accomplished? Whereas if you curl up with a book for an hour, you often learn something that stays in your brain. What I really wanted to be doing right now was trying to determine what was being done to fight Voldemort, but my obligations as Ginny's hostess required me to be here.

"Hullo, Hermione," said a familiar voice.

"Oh! Hi, Tonks."

Tonks looked relatively normal today. Her hair was blonde, and she was wearing a shirt and jeans that wouldn't attract Muggle attnetion. Unlike many witches, Tonks' job required her to mingle among Muggles a lot.

"Your parents directed me here. Didn't know you liked horses."

"I don't, really, but I have a visiting friend who does. Oh, here she comes now," I added, since Ginny was now riding her horse in our direction.

She reined in on the other side of the fence. "Hi, Tonks."

" 'Lo, Ginny."

"You two knows each other?" I asked in surprise.

"Tonks goes out sometimes with my older brother, Bill," said Ginny.

"I suppose, in the Wizard world, pretty much everybody knows everybody," I mused. I remembered reading about a Muggle sociologist who calculated the probability of two random Americans knowing each other, and came up with the notion of "six degrees of separation". In the close-knit society of British wizards, the probability would be a lot higher.

"Not just that," said Tonks. "The Weasleys and I share a great-great-grandfather somewhere, so you could say we're distant cousins."

"Wait a minute. Last year you told me Malfoy was your first cousin, so –"

"We're distantly related to the Malfoys, yes," said Ginny, dismounting from her horse to take better part in the conversation.

"And yet he snubs you and your brothers all the time."

"Oh, yes, we're the family black sheep," said Ginny drily. "Or blood traitors, as he puts it. Not that I care."

That made sense of some things. Two years ago I had suspected Malfoy of opening the Chamber of Secrets, but it turned out to be Ginny, under Voldemort/Riddle's spell. How had she managed it? Because as a cousin of Draco's, she, too, was an "Heir of Slytherin". And I was starting to realize what an outsider I must seem to Malfoy, "Me and my cousin against my neighbor". Not that that justified his rude behaviour to me. I was still proud of punching him in the nose a year ago.

"Yes, Malfoy is a minor problem," I said, seeing an opportunity to transition to a more important subject. "But the crucial thing is You-Know-Who."

"Yes, I've inquired," said Tonks. "Hermione, you don't have to worry. Things are being done."

"What things?" I asked. "You can talk in front in Ginny."

"I can't go into detail," said Tonks. "I promised to keep my mouth shut. Just relax, and know that people are taking care of things."

I was tempted to ask "What people?", but clearly I was not going to get further information out of Tonks, and indeed she started to make excuses about having to leave. Finally she walked off as I watched after her, frustrated. I got the impression that if it weren't for all the Muggles around, she might have left a lot faster, by DisApparating.

"You don't look satisfied, Hermione," remarked Ginny.

"No," I said. "I remember the last time somebody patted me on the head and said 'Don't worry, Minnie, the grownups have everything under control.' It was the day before Quirrel tried to steal the Philosopher's Stone to try to revive Voldemort. And who stopped him? Three kids who insisted on staying worried."

"Well, maybe the grownups are correct this time," said Ginny. "I wouldn't—"

Suddenly she stopped and looked anxious. She put her foot in the stirrup, hoisted herself back onto her horse, turned it around, and rode swiftly away, while I could do nothing but watch her mount's retreating rump.

What brought THAT on?

0-0-0

"I know you think I'm a nervous ninny today," Ginny admitted when we met in the stables' storage room, where people left their handbags and things while they went riding. "But I could definitely sense magic nearby, and it wasn't you, or me, or Tonks."

"Do you have some sort of radar?"

"What's radar?"

"I mean, being able to detect magic in the area. It's never happened to me."

Ginny shrugged. "I've never been aware of it before, but then, up until yesterday, I've always been surrounded by wizards and witches. Maybe it has something to do with being the First Girl in Seven Generations." She turned her key in the slot and opened the box. "Hermione! MY WAND's GONE!"

"Are you sure?" I asked, peering into the box. All I could see was her handbag.

"Of course I'm sure! I brought it with me, then realized that it would be in my way on the horse, so I put it in the box for safekeeping."

I looked in the box again. Who would steal an odd-looking stick from the box? Only a witch or wizard who recognized what it really was. And Ginny's radar had detected something magical nearby.

"Hermione," said Ginny, "I think you're right, and we ought to keep worrying-"

TO BE CONTINUED

_(AUTHOR'S NOTE: The matter of using a sterility curse as a contraceptive isn't in the books, but I did mention the idea once before, in a HARRY POTTER story called ALL ALONE IN THE WORLD)_

_(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Ginny mentioned the Bill/Tonks connection in HALF-BLOOD PRINCE)_


	4. Chapter 4

**Hermione Investigates**

_(Disclaimer: I have no business connection with HARRY POTTER. My only purpose in writing this story is to have fun and maybe share it)_

_(Author's note: This story is set in the summer between Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix._

**Chapter 4**

We were in a real quandary over what to do. I noticed a security camera set up to watch the storage room; indeed, they seemed to be all over the place in England nowadays. It was possible that the thief had been caught on tape. But complaining to the security people about theft would require explaining why a thief would take what looked like an ordinary stick, and the explanation might end up in a crime report somewhere. Telling the truth would violate the wizard rules about keeping wizardry secret, but neither of us could think of a convincing lie.

"Ginny," I said desperately, "could you use that radar of yours and try to detect whether a wizard has been here?" It had to be a wizard. Who else would steal a wand in the first place?

Ginny shut her eyes and seemed to be concentrating very, very hard. Then she sighed. "No luck. I don't even know how this re-dar thing works. Maybe only detects people in the present."

Even if I could think of a useful spell that might help, neither of us could use it. We were underage, and trying to do magic outside of Hogwarts would set off some sort of alarm at the Ministry. Maybe they'd consider the theft of a wand as a proper excuse, but I didn't want to risk that. I didn't have a high opinion of the Ministry at the moment.

"I suppose we ought to call the Aurors," I said. The Aurors were the wizard police force.

"No! Please don't!" said Ginny. "It would be embarrassing."

"Why? You did nothing wrong. You trusted Muggle security on the assumption that there would be no wizards around."

"Because, it's just so humiliating to lose your wand. It's such an intimate part of you. It's like, well, somebody stealing your bra, or your knickers. Wouldn't you be embarrassed to talk to a policeman about that?"

I didn't see the comparison. But that may just be because I hadn't grown up in the witch culture; a wand to me was something exotic, not part of my personality. But we didn't have time to argue at the moment – my Mum was about to pick us up, and Ginny probably wouldn't want to talk about the theft in front of her. By the time we got home, however, Ginny had made up her mind.

"I'm going to send a message to the twins. They got of age a few months ago, so they can do magic outside of school."

"Fred and George? They'll tease you unmercifully. Ron had told me about that."

"That's because they pick on RON, not me. They were very upset, two years ago, when they learnt I was going through a crisis with You-Know-Who's diary, and they didn't even know. They said I could call on them, next time there was a problem, and they wouldn't razz me about it. Not much, anyway."

She used a charm to summon an owl – apparently that didn't violate underage-magic rules – and sent a message to the twins. Meanwhile I was considering the logistical problems of being a witch in a Muggle world. At Hogwarts I was used to everything being within walking distance; at worst you may have to walk a mile into Hogsmeade. But my house was miles away from the nearest wizards. We weren't on the Floo Network, and one couldn't ride a broom in my neighbourhood without attracting a lot of attention. How would the twins even get here? They didn't know where I lived, except for having a street address. I was still worried about that during the evening, when I heard a tap on my bedroom window.

I let in the owl, and read the message it had brought.

"_I'm on my way. Just stick your head out the window, and cry 'Oi'. George."_

Rather confused, I bent out the window and made the call.

"Ta very much," said George, rounding a corner of my house.

"How in Merlin's name did you get here?" I asked admiringly.

"New charm that Fred and I thought up. I put a spell on your owl, to trace where it went to deliver your message, then Apparated here. Only catch was, I didn't know which room was yours, and I didn't want to peak in windows in case you weren't dressed."

"That was a very impressive spell, George," I said. I wondered if it was connected to the magic behind the Marauder's Map. "But it could work both ways. Suppose Filch put the spell on you and Fred, and knew where you were all the time?" Or what was worse, what if Voldemort got the spell. It would be bad if my friends and I had to hide out from Voldemort some day.

"Damn, hadn't thought of that. OK, we better keep that one to ourselves."

"So, how can we get to the Roans and Rides stables?" asked Ginny. "It's too far to walk, and we can't send owls to the horses, and we certainly can't ask Hermione's Mum to drive us to the place so we can break in."

Right. The stables were about a mile out into the country, so that customers would have plenty of room to ride in, and neighbours wouldn't complain about the manure.

"Hmm. Hermione, do you remember the route your Mum took to get you to the place."

"Certainly."

"Hermione remembers everything," observed Ginny, a little sourly.

"OK, I have an idea about that," said George. "Let's go."

Ginny and I climbed out of my window to join George. It was fortunate that we were wearing jeans, and not loose robes that would inhibit our movements. We walked out to the pavement.

"All right, Hermione, what's the farthest point on the route that you can see from here?"

I looked down the road. "That roundabout, about three blocks down."

"All right – hang on –" He grasped my arm with one hand, and Ginny's with the other, and we Disapparated.

I had done side-Apparation once before, with Tonks, but I still wasn't used to the sensation. It was like spinning in four dimensions. Then the universe returned to normal and we found ourselves standing in the middle of the roundabout.

"OK," said George calmly, as if he had just stepped on the brake of his motorcar. "Which way now?"

I was a little disoriented, because it was dark and we had lost a dimension. "Um, that way."

After four more jumps, we had got close enough to the stable to smell the horses. The fifth jump got us there. I wasn't looking forward to the trip back.

George got out his wand and pointed it at the door of the offices. "Alohamora!"

The door opened. Naturally a Muggle lock wasn't designed to stand up to the unlocking spell.

"That might have set off a burglar alarm," I said. "We need to be careful. Ginny, can you keep watch, and yell if anybody starts to approach? Then we can Apparate out,"

"OK. I think the security room is over there, behind the counter. There's a glass wall, and I saw some men in uniform watching those telly things."

Another "alohamora" got us in the security room, and now it was my turn to do something useful. George would not be familiar with video technology. In fact I worried that there might be computer controls that I might not understand. But no, there was a telly with a video player plugged in, in one corner. George alohamora-ed a desk drawer and found some videotapes, one marked with today's date, 15-7-1995, and the rough time of our visit, 14:00.

I put the video in the player and put it on fast-forward. The results seemed to fascinate George, who like his sister was unfamiliar with tellies and related terminology. When a single form approached Ginny's storage locker, I slowed it down to normal speed, and we watched as the figure waved a wand and opened the locker.

"Damn. HIM again," said George.

"You know him?"

"Yes. Name's Mundungus Fletcher, unaffectionately known to his acquaintances as Dung."

"What a surprise, finding Dung in a stable. Why do you think he's taking Ginny's wand? After all, he's got one of his own."

"He's a petty thief and confidence man in general. I suppose he means to resell it. When wizards or witches are sentenced to Azkaban, their wands are confiscated and sometimes broken. If they escape, they'll still need a wand. Also, it's possible for a sophisticated wizard to examine a wand and find what spells it has cast recently. Someone committing a crime with a wand might want a spare for the purpose."

"Yes, I remember somebody stole Harry's wand for the purpose at the World Quidditch Match. But where do you know Dung from?"

For the first time this evening, George looked sheepish. "Um, Fred and I needed some dragon's teeth for a spell for our business. There wasn't a, um, straightforward way to get them, so we hired Dung to acquire them. But he cheated us, giving us Thestral teeth instead."

"So you two were surprised to find that a thief was dishonest?"

"Well—"

"Never mind. The big question is, how can we get the wand back from him?"

TO BE CONTINUED.

_(NOTE: In CHAMBER OF SECRETS, Harry discovered that Filch was a "squib" and could not do magic. I'm assuming that Harry considered this private information and did not repeat it to Hermione or the Weasleys)_


	5. Chapter 5

**Hermione Investigates**

**Chapter 5**

"Now listen to me, you two," said George. His demeanor was very different from his usual sardonic pose, and I realized that he meant the following advice very seriously. "I don't know the best strategy for dealing with Mundungus, but you should NOT try to go after him yourselves. Dung himself is a coward, but he may be allied with powerful people who could do terrible things to you."

It was frustrating. If Mundungus WAS allied to Voldemort, we could kill two birds with one stone – get Ginny's wand back, and gather proof that Voldemort really was alive and dangerous. But for that very reason, we had to refrain from trying to track him down.

"Look on the bright side, Ginny," continued her brother. "Even if you HAD the wand back, you couldn't use it, because of the restrictions on under-aged magic."

He did NOT ask, I noticed, why she bothered taking her wand with her on her visit to me in the first place, instead of simply leaving it at the Barrow. George, too, probably shared the wizards' instinctive reluctance to go around without a wand.

"I'm going to need a wand when I go back to Hogwarts," the girl pointed out.

"If you don't get it back by then, you can buy a new one."

Ginny looked upset at the suggestion, and wasn't just pride this time. Wands were expensive; otherwise, people would be buying spares all the time. Buying 9 wands, for the 2 parents and 7 children, and probably been a severe drain on the Weasley's funds, plus they eventually had to buy a replacement for Ron after his second year. George noticed and tried another tack. "Maybe other people can offer advice; is there anybody that you don't mind hearing about it?"

"All right. Ron and the other brothers, but not Percy. Please don't tell Mum and Dad yet."

"OK. In the meantime, just enjoy exploring Muggledom, all right?"

Brother and sister shared a pecked kiss, and Ginny and I proceeded back to my bedroom window. I climbed in first, being more familiar with manoeuvring through the dark outside.

"So!" said a familiar but angry voice. "Come back from your date, Minnie?"

"Ulp!" I uttered. "Hullo, Mum."

She was standing by my wardrobe, glaring at me. "I know I can't keep track of what you're doing at school, Minnie. But I think that when you're back under our roof, you could at least tell me when you're going out with a boy."

"But I wasn't—"

"Don't tell me that. I saw you kiss the boy, outside on the pavement."

What she saw was Ginny kissing her brother, while dressed in jeans that I had loaned her. Darkness and distance had added to the confusion, and Mum had mistaken Ginny for me.

Meanwhile Ginny, unable to see in from outside, was innocently climbing in my window herself. She spotted my mother and muttered, "Oh, um, hullo, Mrs. Granger."

"Mum's mad at us for secretly going out with boys," I explained hastily.

"But we weren't—"

"It's all right, Ginny, let's not deny it," I said hastily. The notion that I was sneaking out on a forbidden date was of course completely wrong, but telling the truth – that we were breaking into a business's security office – would be worse. Mum didn't know the sort of things I got involved in at Hogwarts.

"Tomorrow, Minnie, you're to stay home doing chores. Ginny, I'm sorry to put a damper on your visit, but –"

"Oh, I've been a very naughty girl," she said, overdoing it a bit. "I'll help Min – I mean Hermione – with the work."

Later that night, after we had bathed and were getting ready for bed, I asked "I AM sorry that I involved you in my fib, Hermione. What if my Mum told your Mum that you were sneaking around with a boy?"

"If it comes up," Ginny said, "I'll just tell her it was Harry. She loves Harry."

"That would work?"

"They don't talk about it much, but I get the impression that when they were at Hogwarts, Mum and Dad would sometimes sneak away and – I'm not sure exactly what they're supposed to have done. Probably not THAT. But I don't think she'd be shocked about me being with Harry."

"All right then."

Before drifting off to sleep, Ginny asked impishly: "So your pet name is Minnie?"

"Oh, shut up," I said.

The next day Mum gave us a list of chores to do. It was boring work, and intended to be, but it was fun watching Ginny's reaction to Muggle-style chores. Her idea of housework was watching Mrs. Weasley wave her wand to get things done and delegating relatively minor tasks to the kids. When we turned on the Hoover to vacuum the floors, she was shocked by "how noisy cleaning up was".

After lunch we went outside to mow the front lawn. It was hot work and even more boring, but things got interesting when Ginny slipped up to me and whispered: "I think I see him. Mun-doodoo."

"Where?"

"Behind that bush across the street, watching us. We better pretend not to notice."

I was subtle about it, but while turning the lawn more at the end of a row, I took a look and saw that Ginny was right. He was certainly clumsy about it. Maybe because he underestimated two underage girls? That thought alone made me want to do something about it.

"I'm going to go inside and look for some shears," I said loudly. "That hedge there needs cutting."

"Good idea," replied Ginny, winking to show that she knew I had a plan in mind.

I slouched into the house, looking tired, then burst into activity. Went into my room and plucked my own wand out of the drawer – the Ministry wouldn't create a fuss about underage magic if I was actually confronting a criminal. I slipped it into my blouse, then donned a long dress so he wouldn't recognize the jeans that I had been working in. Then out the back door, and across several back yards. Most of the neighbors would be at work right now and wouldn't complain. Some kids, being looked after by a nanny, spotted me, but I told them I was committing a prank and so they thought I was all right.

When I was far enough to the side that I didn't think he would spot me, I crossed the street, and repeated the path through back yards on the other side. In the process, I figured out what Mr. Dung was probably up to.

A wizard criminal would have problems preying on other wizards. They would know protective spells, even curses, and at worst, they could call in Aurors from the Ministry to arrest him.

On the other hand, there would be little point in robbing Muggles. Sadistic bullying, such as last year's drunks at the World Quidditch Match, yes, but not robbery, because there was little Muggles had that would tempt wizards. There was little point in stealing pounds – Wizards had their own monetary system, and trying to exchange the pounds for galleons would attract too much attention. Steal a telly? A computer? Wizards didn't use them.

But what about a magical but underage girl living in the Muggle world? The Muggles would have little defense against a wizard-thief. Any lock would give way before an Alohamora spell. No Shield charms or Sneakoscopes to warn of his approach. And the girl herself would be forbidden by Ministry laws to use defensive magic, even if she knew the spells. A perfect target. So Mundungus had stolen Ginny's wand, and now he was spying on our house looking for something else to steal.

By this point I was opposite my own house, and sneaking up behind the thief. This was the most delicate part. Not that I thought Mundungus would turn violent; George had said that he was a coward. But he might Apparate away, and I would have no way of following him. I had to catch him before he noticed my approach.

Regarding that, Ginny had apparently had a startling idea of her own, something she probably wouldn't have had the nerve to do among wizards. She had taken off her blouse and draped it on the bushes, and was working the yard in her bra, showing considerable cleavage. Probably she had pretended that she had gotten overheated. Definitely she was attracting Mr. Dung's attention.

I slipped out my wand, and charged forward the last couple of yards.

"Got you!"

TO BE CONTINUED.


	6. Chapter 6

**Hermione Investigates**

CHAPTER 6

I wrapped my right arm around Mr. Dung's chest, and used my left hand to jab my wand into his neck. He seemed too startled to react at first, and when he did struggle, it was rather feebly. Wizards weren't used to physical confrontations; I remember how Malfoy had freaked out after I punched him in the nose a couple of years ago. Nor could he Apparate away from me. If I understood the phenomenon properly, any attempt to Apparate would simply take me with him

Ginny, seeing that her diversion, had worked, grabbed her blouse off the bush and crossed the street to us.

Meanwhile, fear of my wand seemed to force Mr. Dung to keep still. He must have reasoned that the Ministry for Magic would probably let concerns about "underage magic" slide if I caught a thief in the process. But I still worried about Apparation. Suppose he teleported himself, and me, to a hideout where friends of his were. I could not Apparate back and I might end up at the mercy of some very unpleasant people.

Well, there was a way to block that. "Accio Wands."

The wand came out of his pocket and poked me rather painfully on my hand, but I still managed to hold onto my prisoner. It didn't matter, because Ginny picked it up.

"There!" I said. "You can use that until we get your own wand back."

"You can't take my wand!" Mr. Dung said, outraged.

"Why not?" asked Ginny, sounding genuinely puzzled. "You took mine."

"I think losing a wand may be more traumatic for men," I suggested, thinking aloud. "It's a phallic symbol."

"A what?" asked Ginny.

"Um, rather not explain right now. Maybe later, when we're exchanging girl talk."

"Let me go!" Mr. Dung blustered. "I've got friends-"

"Oh?" I asked. "Who? Voldemort?" I was in luck. In this exchange, we might not only get Ginny's wand back, but get a clue to Voldemort's location, or at least proof that he was alive again.

But now it seemed to be Mr. Dung's turn to be puzzled. "V-Voldemort?" I actually felt his body shudder. "No!"

"Who then?" I jabbed his neck again with my wand. I wouldn't have the nerve to torture him with a spell, but then he didn't know that.

Unfortunately, the dilemma of whether to divulge his friends' identity seemed to spur into action. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain on my foot as my prisoner stamped on it. He was wearing heavy boots and I was wearing soft trainers that provided little cushioning effect. I screamed and lost hold of him, and he started running down the street. Ginny started after him, then stopped, flustered. I could understand why. She was holding her blouse in front of her chest, but from behind her back was bare except for her bra strap. She couldn't build the nerve to chase somebody down a street, attracting attention, while half dressed.

"Don't worry, Ginny," I assured her. "He'll be back. After all, we've got his wand."

When my parents came home from their dentistry practice that evening, I explained away my injured foot by explaining that I had accidently dropped a heavy tool on it during my chores. It also gave me an excuse for not having finished the chores that required standing or walking. After dinner, they advised me to lie down on my bed and get off of the foot. Ginny accompanied me to my bedroom. I took advantage of the privacy to explain about Freudian symbols. "One of Freud's theories was that men might perceive any long, thin object as a symbol of a certain part of their anatomy. Pencils, swords, towers, and in our case wands. But he warned his followers not to get carried away with the idea. He said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

"Cigar?" asked Ginny, then she blushed. "Oh, I get it. Haha."

"Wizards never talk about that?"

"I haven't heard them do it, and it does sound like something Fred and George would joke about. Though, of course, I'm just a fourteen-year-old girl, so they might not do it in my hearing. Where did you hear it?"

"I read a lot. Muggle books as well as tomes on magic."

I thought about wizards' span of knowledge. Wizards went to special schools – Hogwarts or Beauxbatons or Durmstrange – where they were taught by wizards, who had themselves been taught by other wizards. It cut them off from Muggle intellectual currents. Concerning technology, it probably didn't matter; wizards had their own magical ways of getting things done. But there were other disciplines that might be useful for them to know, and they weren't learning them. Biology, physics, political theory. I was going to worry about that for quite a while.

As sunset passed by, we turned to a more immediate concern. Mr. Dung wanted his wand back, and he would guess that it was hidden in my room. The best way for him to get it back was to break into the room during the night. And while he was in our bedroom, he might be tempted to – do other things. Ginny was starting to regret having exposed so much flesh to him this afternoon. We needed to be prepared.

We would stay awake, and keep out dayclothes on to decrease our vulnerability. Ginny thought our two wands might be enough for self-defense, but I worried that Mr. Dung might have obtained another wand from somebody else, or even use the one stolen from Ginny. He might also be more adept at offensive spells. So I hobbled to the kitchen and got out a powerful halogen torch, which my parents and I had used when camping out in the forest of Dean. I made sure that I could find the ON switch by feel, in the dark. Then we blacked out my room and waited. To keep ourselves awake, we exchanged some rather ribald girl talk that I would rather not repeat here.

Around 11:30, we heard footsteps outside my window – indeed, the intruder seemed rather incapable of walking silently. We heard a whispered _Wingardium Leveiosa_ spell and the window rose, confirming that the intruder had a wand and could do magic. I waited until the intruder had stepped inside with one leg, then turned on the halogen torch aimed directly at the bloke, temporarily blinding our attacker.

"You!" I said, startled.

The intruder was not Mundungus Fletcher.

It was Nympadora Tonks.

TO BE CONTINUED.


	7. Chapter 7

**Hermione Investigates**

**Chapter 7**

Apparently dazzled by the light, Tonks tripped over my slippers and fell on her face. It was such a familiar Tonks-like thing to do that all the tension went out of the situation. I switched off the torch and turned on the bedside lamp instead. "Tonks, what are you DOING here?"

She got up gingerly, "Ow, my boob. I came to return Ginny's wand." She held out an object.

"It IS mine," said Ginny, looking over it closely. "How did you get it?"

"Got it from Dung on the promise that I'd get his back."

"You made a deal with Mundungus?" I asked incredulously. "An Auror and a thief? Tonks, what is going on?"

She bit her lip. "Long story."

"Well, we've got all night." My parents were running some rather loud air-conditioning, it being the middle of summer, and I didn't think they'd hear us talking.

Tonks thought for a minute. "All right," she said finally. "But I can't TELL you. I'll have to show you. Take my hands and I'll Apparate you two."

I thought over the risks. Tonks was basically trustworthy, in spite of her odd behaviour tonight. She wouldn't teleport us into danger. And I reminded myself that she could simply have teleported herself out of my bedroom when things got awkward, and hadn't done it. She knew she owed us some sort of explanation.

Ginny took Tonk's right hand, and I took her left. Both of us were careful to hang on to our wands. Then the universe went crazy for a while.

When we got back to normal, we found ourselves in a small park, surrounded by buildings of several stories. Obviously London, where space was at a premium. The area looked rather rundown: not a slum but a middle-class area that had seen better days. Tonks conducted us to one of the buildings, a row house. "Close your eyes."

"Why?"

"Secret-keeper charm, and I'm not the keeper. I can only get you in if you can't see your way in."

Reluctantly, I closed my eyes. A few seconds later I heard a door creak open, and a familiar voice ask "Dora? What?"

Sirius Black's voice. He was Tonks' cousin. The last time Tonks mentioned him, she was still mystified by his supposed turn to crime and she had no idea where he was. Either she was lying then, or things had changed a lot.

"I mucked up and got caught," Tonks said ruefully. "We might as well let them in on it."

"The others are not going to like this, but okay. Keep your eyes shut, girls, and we'll guide you in."

It was awkward, particularly with my injured foot, but I got up a couple of steps and through a door. I found out later that the house was invisible to outsiders, and would have been very difficult to enter if we could see what we were doing. I heard a door close behind me, and Black's voice said, "You can open your eyes now. You're inside the spell."

I obeyed. I was in a very dark hallway, unadorned except for a pair of curtains on one wall. I asked: "Where are we?"

"Black family mansion," said Sirius. " Grimmauld Place. It's not very pleasant, I admit, but fugitives can't be choosers. Neither can conspirators."

"Conspirators?"

"When you asked me a week ago to find information on You-Know-Who," said Tonks, "first I sought out Moody, but they said he was ill, and they were very evasive about it. I thought that was odd, because he had been teaching at Hogwarts this year, and he usually barrels through anything – losing an eye, losing a leg, whatever. Then I ran into Remus Lupin and complained that something was going on and I seemed to be locked out of it. Lupin trusts me, so after swearing me to secrecy he told me about the Order. The catch was, after taking the oath, I couldn't tell you what I'd learned. All I could say was, things were being done and you didn't need to worry."

"But, being Hermione, she DID worry," Ginny said impishly.

"We call ourselves the Order of the Phoenix," said Sirius. "I can't tell you who else is in it, but basically all of us believe Harry's story that You-know-who is back. We're trying to devise ways of fighting him, and we're staying out of sight until we've come up with a plan."

"How does Mr. Dung fit in?" asked Ginny.

"Well," said Tonks, "members of the Order aren't used to skulking around and staying out of sight—"

"Except me, " said Sirius. "I learnt the hard way."

"—but Mundungus is. He also knows various contacts who might be useful, if they think there's money in it. So we agreed that if he would teach us some of the tricks of the trade, we wouldn't turn him in."

"Leaving him free to steal my wand," Ginny said bitterly.

Sirius winced. "We didn't know he would do that."

_No, I thought, but you knew he would probably victimize SOMEBODY, and you just hoped that it was somebody you didn't know and wouldn't create a fuss._ It didn't strike me as very ethical, but I supposed that they didn't have much choice in the situation. I was about to speak up about that when I realized something else.

"Bollocks!" I exclaimed. I rarely used coarse language, but my new thought seemed to justify it.

"Er, why bollocks?" asked Tonks diffidently.

"I thought we were on the trail of You-know-who, of VOLDEMORT. That we could do something to help expose him. But all we were chasing after was your Order!"

"At least we can help the Order," suggested Ginny.

"NO," said Sirius firmly. "Both of you are too young. I don't want you involved."

"Remember how we tracked you down in the Shrieking Shack last year?" I challenged.

"Yes, and that's precisely why I don't want to endanger you again. No, I want you to swear to keep this secret, and then to go back to your normal lives."

Normal lives! My life stopped being normal five years ago, when I learnt that I was a witch. The instant that I had met Harry – or maybe the instant I found that mysterious note saying "FIND HARRY POTTER" – my life had been tangled up with the fight again Voldemort and his legacy.

"I swear that I will keep the secret," said Ginny.

"I swear that I will keep the secret," I repeated. But I was not swearing to stay out of trouble – and, I secretly noticed, neither was Ginny. I wondered if Tonks or Sirius noticed. They could be sneaky on their own.

"All right," said Tonks. "Now let's get the two of you home."

Getting us out of the house where we could Apparate was almost as complicated as getting us in, because it was important that we not be seen leaving a nonexistent house. But since it was the middle of the night, there was little chance of witnesses.

Tonks teleported us back into my bedroom. "Normal wizard houses have spells on us to keep people from teleporting in and out," she observed. "I'll talk to the Ministry about getting the protection put on your house, and other Muggle houses where young witches and wizards live, so somebody like Mundungus can't intrude whenever he likes. That ought to put a damper on Mundungus' particular scam, and I don't have to bring the Order into it."

"Thank you, Tonks."

The next morning, I was feeling rather drowsy at breakfast, as a result of all the night's running around on an injured foot. But I perked up immediately when Ginny said "Mrs. Granger – Mr. Granger – I've got a confession to make."

I stared. Was Ginny going to tell my parents about Mundungus, and Tonks, and all that?

"I know that you think Minnie has been sneaking around with a boy," Ginny continued. Minnie? Ginny never called me that. "But it wasn't Minnie. It was me. I have a boy friend in the neighbourhood."

"Oh?" asked Mum cautiously. I still could not tell what Ginny was doing, but it was obvious what was going through Mum's head. She had a duty to the Weasleys, to protect their daughter during her visit. Had Ginny gotten in trouble?

"Oh, we didn't go very far," Ginny said. "Minnie saw to that. She insisted on chaperoning us. That's why she was out of the house when I was talking to my bloke, a couple of nights ago." She winked at me; my parents couldn't see that side of her face.

"Well, Minnie, I wish you'd been straightforward with us," said Dad. "But I suppose I can understand the bind that you were in, not wanting to snitch on your friend to 'grown-ups'. I'm glad you were showing a sense of responsibility."

I finally caught on. Ginny knew that my parents were upset at my supposed love life, and was covering for me.

"Oh yes," said Ginny. "Minnie is a very good girl."

That was laying it on too thick, and I had to restrain from laughing. After all, if I were that good a girl, I wouldn't be scheming right now to circumvent the Order of the Phoenix, and try to personally continue the fight against Voledmort. Just wait until I get back to Hogwarts-

THE END.


End file.
